Page 15 - The Social Animal

Acknowledgments xiii

ment and updating of this book. It is a pleasure to acknowledge their
generosity. For this edition, I also want to thank Chuck Schaeffer for
his helpful suggestions and valuable bibliographic assistance. My deep
gratitude goes also to Erik Gilg, my editor, and to Maria Vlasak, my
copy editor, whose painstaking efforts on this tenth edition made it a
pleasure to revise.
There is a sense in which this book is a family enterprise. This
has been especially true during the past two decades when I have ex-
perienced the singular gratification of being deeply influenced by my
grown children—each in his and her own fashion. My youngest son,
Joshua Aronson (a brilliant experimental social psychologist in his
own right), takes great delight in trying to keep me on my toes re-
garding recent methodological and theoretical innovations. More
specifically, he has provided me with invaluable insights and sugges-
tions about changes to be made in both the ninth and the tenth edi-
tions of this book and has done some of the writing and integrating
of the new material. My eldest son, Hal Aronson (an environmental
sociologist), helps to keep my focus broader than the confines of the
laboratory. And my middle children, Neal Aronson (a firefighter for
the city of Santa Cruz) and Julie Aronson (an educational researcher
and evaluator), toil in the trenches of human service on a day-to-day
basis, reminding me by their example that, ultimately, social psychol-
ogy must strive to be useful to people in their daily lives.
Finally, as you may have noticed, the dedication of this book
reads, “To Vera, of course.” The Vera in question is Vera Aronson,
who has been my best friend and favorite consultant for more than
fifty years and who (to my great good fortune) also happens to be my
wife. To anyone who knows us well, the phrase, “of course” in the
dedication is redundant. And, because redundancy is an occupational
hazard in the teaching game, I must admit (with a blush) that it is
almost certainly not the last redundancy you will need to put up with.

Elliot Aronson
March 2007